The present invention relates to soil moisture gauges. A known such device is a pot soil moisture gauge which comprises a two electrode probe, electronic measuring circuit, DC milliammeter as an indicator and solar cell battery as a source of power. The indicator has a scale where full range is divided on ten parts and described with digits 0 to 10.
The gauge is provided with a manual instruction booklet which tells how to use the gauge and what readings are proper for certain plants.
The pot soil moisture gauge is to be used for checking the moisture of soil in pots of household plants in order to keep the soil moist enough for plant growth. To do this, one has to insert the probe into the soil, read what the indicator shows and compare this reading with the data in the booklet. Depending on the reading, at times it will be necessary to water the soil.
The above described gauge works well, but there is one fault: the user has to remember to check the soil moisture of his/her plants. The problem is that people, even those who love plants, sometimes are too busy to think of their plants. They forget to check the moisture of the soil and when the soil gets too dry their plants may die. To eliminate this problem there has been developed continuously monitoring soil moisture devices such as devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,268,824 and 4,512,722. These devices are designed for continuous operation, thus they work unnecessarily during the night when people usually are sleeping, causing premature discharge of the battery resulting in failure of the device.